THE ENGLISH BOY.-(Mrs. Hemans.)

Look from the ancient mountains down,
My noble English boy;

Thy country's fields around thee gleam,
In sunlight and in joy.

Ages have rolled since foeman's march.
Passed o'er that old, firm sod;
For well the land hath fealty held
To freedom and to God.

Gaze proudly on, my English boy,
And let thy kindling mind
Drink in the spirit of high thought
From every chainless wind.

There, in the shadow of old Time,
The halls beneath thee lie,
Which poured forth to the fields of yore
Our England's chivalry.

How bravely and how solemnly

They stand, midst oak and yew!

Whence Cressy's yeomen haply framed

The bow, in battle true.

And round their walls the good swords hang, Whose faith knew no alloy,

And shields of knighthood, pure from stain:
Gaze on, my English boy.

Gaze where the hamlet's ivied church
Gleams by the antique elm,

Or where the minster lifts the cross
High through the air's blue realm.

Martyrs have showered their free heart's blood,
That England's prayer might rise

From those grey fanes of thoughtful years,
Unfettered to the skies.

Along their aisles, beneath their trees,
This earth's most glorious dust,
Once fired with valour, wisdom, song,
Is laid in holy trust.

Gaze on,-gaze farther, farther yet-
My gallant English boy!

Yon blue sea bears thy country's flag,
The billows' pride and joy.

Those waves in many a fight have closed
Above her faithful dead;
That red-cross flag victoriously
Hath floated o'er their bed.

They perished-this green turf to keep
By hostile tread unstained,
These knightly halls inviolate,
Those churches unprofaned.

And high and clear their memory's light
Along our shore is set,

And many an answering beacon-fire
Shall there be kindled yet.

Lift up thy heart, my English boy,
And pray like them to stand,
Should God so summon thee to guard
The altars of the land.

THE LABOURER. (W. D. Gallagher.)
Stand up erect! thou hast the form

And likeness of thy God:-who more?
A soul as dauntless 'mid the storm
Of daily life, a heart as warm
And pure as breast e'er wore.

What then? Thou art as true a man
As moves the human mass among-
As much a part of the great plan
That with Creation's dawn began
As any of the throng.

Who is thine enemy? the high

In station, or in wealth the chief; The great, who coldly pass thee by With proud step and averted eye? Nay! nurse not such belief.

If true unto thyself thou wast,

What were the proud one's scorn to thee? A feather, which thou mightest cast Aside, as lightly as the blast

The light leaf from the tree.

No; uncurbed passions, low desires,
Absence of noble self-respect;
Death, in the breast's consuming fires,
To that high nature which aspires
For ever, till thus checked.

These are thine enemies-thy worst:
They chain thee to thy lowly lot;

Thy labour and thy life accurst.
Oh, stand erect! and from them burst,
And longer suffer not.

Thou art thyself thine enemy:

The great, what better they than thou?
As theirs, is not thy will as free?
Has God with equal favours thee
Neglected to endow ?

True, wealth thou hast not-'tis but dust;
Nor place uncertain as the wind:
But that thou hast which, with thy crust
And water, may despise the lust

Of both—a noble mind.

With this, and passions under ban,
True faith, and holy trust in God,

Thou art the peer of any man :
Look up, then, that thy little span
Of life may be well trod.

THE LION'S RIDE.-(Translated from the German of Ferdinand Freiligrath.)

The lion is the desert's king; through his domain so wide,

Right swiftly and right royally this night he means to ride.

By the sedgy brink, where the wild herds drink, close couches the grim chief;

The trembling sycamore above whispers with every leaf.

At evening on the Table Mount, when ye can see

no more,

The changeful play of signals gay; when the gloom is speckled o'er

With kraal fires; when the Caffre wends home. through the lone karroo;

When the boskbok in the thicket sleeps, and by the stream the gnu;

Then bend your gaze across the waste-what see ye? The giraffe,

Majestic, stalks towards the lagoon, the turbid lymph to quaff;

With outstretched neck and tongue adust, he kneels him down to cool

His hot thirst with a welcome draught from the foul and brackish pool.

A rustling sound-a roar-a bound-the lion sits astride.

Upon his giant courser's back. Did ever king so

ride?

Had ever king a steed so rare caparisons of state To match the dappled skin whereon that rider sits

elate?

In the muscles of the neck his teeth are plunged with ravenous greed;

His tawny mane is tossing round the withers of the steed.

Upleaping with a hollow yell of anguish and

surprise,

Away, away, in wild dismay, the camelopard flies. His feet have wings; see how he springs across the moonlit plain;

As from their sockets they would burst, his glaring eyeballs strain;

In thick black streams of purling blood, full fast his life is fleeting;

The stillness of the desert hears his heart's tumult

uous beating.

H